Day: 24 June 2013

Sanctus1 and Nexus Art Café – update Jun13

Al Lowe gives the latest news on what's happening with Sanctus1 and Nexus in the heart of city centre Manchester.

There have been quite a few changes in recent times. Nexus Art Café is an independent charity so we experienced quite a shift in emphasis when the charity manager, as the person who also ran the café, decided not to return from maternity leave. We then recruited a new person but altered the focus of the role so that it now concentrates on Nexus as an arts venue and the official job title is that of art and venue coordinator.

That change has allowed us to refocus on where we are in terms of Christian spirituality: it has released us from any inhibitions in assessing the stage we have reached in our journey and what we are doing as part of that journey. It has given us a good nudge in the right direction.

Nexus Art CaféAnother outcome has been for Sanctus1 to think of Nexus as a 'legitimate' place to be linked with. The café is now more financially viable than it has been previously, so again, Sanctus1 feel happier merging with something of worth – rather than thinking they have taken on a liability.

This is all part of Sanctus1 making the gradual move towards being missional. We have seen some of the fruit of that when Sanctus1 recently contributed to an art exhibition at Nexus.

As well as our weekly service on Sundays and Wednesdays, Sanctus1 is also involved in:

  • Spirituality Film Nights

    These are run every month by Nexus Art Café (supported by Sanctus1) on their big screen in response to a survey about spirituality.

  • Halfway

    This is a joint venture between Nexus Art Cafe and Sanctus 1 and takes the form of a short weekly mediation, lasting about half an hour and designed to bring some spiritual relief and relaxation in the middle of the busy week.

  • Going Deeper

    A small group offers deeper discussion about what is happening in our lives and try to find God in what is happening. It meets twice a month at Nexus.

  • Sub

    Sanctus1 provides spiritual covering for a small group of Christians exploring their faith through the lens of alternative sub-cultures. Meeting every few months they spend time with a subject, often in a location that compliments the subject matter. Sub has also run services at Greenbelt over the last few years and will be doing so again this year.

Nexus events boardSanctus1 had struggled a little bit with a mission identity but things are moving on and we have now employed a children's worker for four hours a week to be with the children on a Sunday morning during the Sanctus1 gathering. That's great but when you start employing people you have to be aware that it is something which can challenge your constitutional status. That was certainly the case for us and, as a result, we needed to address the constitutional relationship with Nexus. Both constitutions highlight the promotion of the Christian religion so what we do has to be seen as mutually beneficial.

We are in the throes of getting to grips with the terms of the new constitutions; that's complex because we have a number of interested parties in that, including the Nexus trustees, the Manchester Methodist Circuit, the Diocese of Manchester, Sanctus1 and of course the people involved with Nexus.

Identity has turned out to be a major issue at Nexus as well during this time. The way it had been set up meant that there was some confusion about what it was, along the lines of 'it can be whatever you want it to be' but if you don't have a clear agenda, people will create their own agenda. But you can't be all things to all people so a lot of what we've been going through recently is reclaiming that sense of Nexus identity.

Nexus - donations boxPreviously we were giving out quite mixed messages and there was a sense that we were hoodwinking people who wanted to volunteer as to what we are all about. It became increasingly important for us to make clear that we are not just an arts café and we're not simply a community centre.

It means saying that this is what we are about but doing it in such a way that it creates a lot of scope for creative lateral thinking. As long as what we do doesn't interfere with the 'promotion of the Christian religion' within our constitution, then why not do it?  We are just creating more opportunities to engage with a view to some people then wanting to open up faith discussions. I would say it's important to let people have free rein to develop these creative ideas and from that we can hone the sense of community and be stepping stones into commitment.

The results of all of this in terms of relationship between Sanctus1 and Nexus are:

  • less suspicion between the two organisations;

  • some joint ideas associated with prayer groups and events;

  • letting Sanctus1 have a little more ownership of the Nexus space.

Sanctus1 - chaplainsAnother major development is our involvement in the Methodist Church's Chaplaincy Everywhere course. We have taken the opportunity of engaging with Jonathan Green, Chaplaincy Development Project Officer on the Methodist Connexional team. We ran some teaching on the subject for interested community members and we now have six lay chaplains – and me – in Afflecks Palace, a Manchester landmark and an 'eclectic emporium of indie commerce'. This Manchester landmark includes tattoo parlours, a 'pagancraft' centre, and vintage clothing outlets.

There are another three or four people who want to get on board and we'll be running further training in July with the aim of expanding the chaplaincy work across the city's Northern Quarter. There's no doubt that chaplaincy is offering very special opportunities for engagement with the local community and the great thing is that if people want to take the next step and meet somewhere we can point them in the direction of Nexus and Sanctus1 as a place to be.

Nexus Art Café SignI have been here nearly four years and I would say it is only in the past twelve months that we have seen Sanctus1 and Nexus working so closely together. Finance is always an issue and the café doesn't pay my stipend but it is now generating an income. As an independent charity, this means we are in a better position to apply for external grants. We had agreed funding from the Diocese and the Circuit for five years – the Diocese has now agreed to a further two and the Circuit is looking to do the same, though that decision still has to be ratified. Personally I am going through reinvitation stationing this year so we'll have to see what happens in 2014.

Scotland: a new spiritual vision (John Drane)

John Drane explores a new spiritual vision for Scotland.

The first thing to say is that Scotland is not the same as England! We have different legal, educational, and healthcare systems from our nearest neighbours, and soon we might even be a foreign country. Our churches are also different.

Anglicans are Scottish Episcopalians. The national church, the Church of Scotland, is Presbyterian. And whatever you do, don't confuse the Free Church of Scotland with the Free Churches in England! But the challenges and opportunities with which our churches are wrestling are the same as everywhere else in the developed countries of the western world.

The difficulties facing our churches are by no means unique, though we do have some distinctive historical baggage: in common with other European countries where the Reformation had a more stridently puritanical flavour than in England, Scotland is arguably a more secular country than other parts of the UK and many people are openly cynical about the role of religious institutions. Rapid and discontinuous cultural change has also taken its toll on traditional church life and though there are pockets of new life, in many places the story is one of declining numbers and aging congregations.

More than a decade ago, the Church of Scotland's Church without Walls report (2001) gave a focus for new thinking about the nature of a missional church. In 2011 another report (Reformed, Reforming, Emerging and Experimenting), which I jointly authored with Olive Fleming Drane, documented the emergence of new forms of Christian faith community and highlighted the need for fresh thinking that would recognise these ventures within the structures of the church.

As the Joint Emerging Church Group of the Ministries Council and the Mission and Discipleship Council reflected on all this, the obvious conclusion was that the Church of Scotland should become a partner in Fresh Expressions. One church leader recently suggested that this is the first time since the Reformation that the Church of Scotland and the Church of England have collaborated on specifically missional issues (as distinct from social and political matters). I have no idea whether that is entirely true, but it is undoubtedly a momentous opportunity for churches on both sides of the border.

Of course, Fresh Expressions has been represented right from the start in Scotland through those congregations that belong to the Methodist Church and more recently the URC and Salvation Army. They will welcome the Church of Scotland's partnership, not least because the Kirk is numerically dominant over all other Protestant denominations (seven or eight times bigger than all the rest put together) and when it embraces something, that often creates an environment in which others can flourish more easily.

Unlike other denominations though, the Church of Scotland has a presence throughout the country. So this is a significant moment for those who are concerned with the re-evangelisation of Scotland. Central to this vision is an invitation to every parish to explore the possibilities of establishing an appropriately contextualised fresh expression of church by the year 2020 – something that will hopefully be pursued in an ecumenical context.

This will be a major challenge to many congregations, where change of any sort can seem alien and threatening. But a growing number of people have already glimpsed new possibilities and are eager to push forward with a new vision.

Since 2010, more than 200 individuals of all denominations have completed the mission shaped ministry course in Inverness, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Aberdeen, whilst vision days have taken place in other locations. The new partnerships will hopefully create spaces in which these people will be released to be in the vanguard of the development of fresh expressions in both urban and rural locations.

For there is no doubt that – especially at this time of national uncertainty, as we consider our relationship with the rest of the UK – our people need a new spiritual vision that will take us forward into what by any definition is an unknown future, to hear the gospel afresh in ways that will be comprehensible within today's culture while also remaining true to the call of Jesus.